BUSH'S SPUTTERING ECONOMY
Retails sales take largest
decline in 16 months

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

America's shoppers had a tight grip on their pocketbooks and wallets in June, dropping sales at the nation's retailers by 1.1 percent. It was the largest decline in 16 months.

The buying retreat, reported today by the Commerce Department, came after shoppers had splurged in May. In that month, they pushed merchants' sales up by a strong 1.4 percent, a showing that was even better than first estimated a month ago.

Bad weather and higher energy prices were blamed for the pullback, economists say. Another possible factor: a slowdown in the growth of the nation's payrolls in June. The economy added a net 112,000 jobs last month, less than half of the amount that economists had forecast.

The 1.1 percent drop in retail sales was the largest since February 2003, when sales fell by the same amount. June's decline was shaper than the 0.7 percent drop that some economists were predicting.

The falloff was led by a sharp 4.3 percent decrease in sales at automobile dealerships, which enjoyed a sizable 3.2 percent gain in sales during May.

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I really hope that the failed conservative policies of the Bush administration are remembered by voters in November. The entire neo-liberal experiment originally launched over twenty years ago is an utter disaster: "trickle down" tax cuts for the wealthy do not translate into economic growth and more jobs; the already well-to-do recipients of Bush's Santa-for-the-rich game simply keep the money for themselves. It was, as George H. W. Bush once called it, "voodoo economics" back in the 80s, and it's "voodoo economics" now.

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